There are no contingency plans for this!
St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park are two cities on a peninsula of Florida’s west coast. With the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Tampa Bay on the other side evacuation choices are few even when a proper warning is given. This is no place to be when a major disaster strikes and power goes out.
The general population receives no warning of the impending doom about to wash over them. The dead are coming back to life, filled with a single-minded urge to devour the living.
While the power is on, some people follow the bigger picture on TV, but the news is little more than a chronicler of the disaster. Sadly, most people are better at becoming part of the problem than finding a way to solve it.
The most important question becomes: Are there enough resilient, survivor types left to stem the riding dead tide of humanity?
I was sent this novel to review a few months ago and I apologise for the late response. The author, Stephen A. North was kind enough to send me a copy of his novel. He’s a very nice and well-spoken individual, and I was very excited to read his novel, Dead Tide.
Okay, now let’s get this review on the road, shall we?
This is a hefty novel, a bit larger than most of the novels in the genre. What is there to say about Dead Tide? It’s very fast paced despite the novel’s length, which surprised me.
Plot: This story takes the viewpoints from a wide cast of characters, and believe me, there are a lot of characters in this story. Sometimes, too many characters in a story could end up dragging down the entire story, but there are a few novels out there that can actually juggle a large cast and still keep the story moving at a strong pace, and Dead Tide is one of these novels. The author only gave a few pages per chapter, giving little time for the reader to relate to the character before changing into the next POV. But, I was pleasantly surprised at how he balanced all these characters and still managed to make these characters relatable to the reader. The story itself wasn’t bad. The author conveyed a great chaotic atmosphere and his depiction of a social breakdown (and how people, city officials and cops would react.)is very accurate. The only qualm I had with the story was that he could have made the zombies a bit more prevalent, a little more involved with the goings on in the story. At times, they seemed to blend in with the background, but there is some reasoning behind this, the focal point of the story was seeing how people react to the fall of mankind and more importantly, how they treat one another during times of peril.
Characters: As I have mentioned before, there are a lot of characters in this story and I was very surprised at how personable each character was. Even with the little time spent with each character, all of these characters felt real. The author brings each character to life with some excellent dialogue and how each one reacts differently to the end of the world.
Overall: This is a fast paced action story, driven by some strong characters in a great chaotic atmosphere. The only real qualm I have is the lack of zombie involvement with the plot, the zombies could have been a little more prominent in the story. This is a strong story about how people realistically react to zombies, and I haven’t read very many stories that depict chaos as accurately as Dead Tide. The writing style was crisp, the flow was excellent, and it was a very well written story. This was a strong debut for Library of the Living Dead, and I advise it if you are looking for a good, fast paced, chaotic romp.
Available on Amazon.
